


a photograph of yourself taken from far far away

by samalander



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Disability, F/M, Friendship, Gifts, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, Not Canon Compliant, Paralysis, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability, Wheelchairs, new normal - Freeform, spinal cord injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/pseuds/samalander
Summary: Hawkeyes get hurt in battle and bounce back so often that it's almost a running joke. Except this time Kate doesn't get back up.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop
Comments: 15
Kudos: 35
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	a photograph of yourself taken from far far away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milleniumrex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milleniumrex/gifts).



> _You know I really don't look forward_  
>  _To seeing you again_  
>  _You look like a photograph of yourself_  
>  _Taken from far far away_  
>  _I won't know what to do and_  
>  _I won't know what to say_  
>  _Except fuck you_  
>  _And your untouchable face_  
>  _Fuck you_  
>  _For existing in the first place_  
>  _And who am I?_  
>  _That I should be vying for your touch_  
>  _I said who am I?_  
>  _I bet you can't even tell me that much_  
>  -Ani DiFranco, Untouchable Face
> 
> Thank you so much for this prompt and the patience! It wasn't an easy one to write, but I hope you enjoy the pain all the same!
> 
> Special thanks to Emmy, who held my hand and patted my head and then pointed out that some of my darlings needed to die. I love you, my friend.
> 
> Also shoutouts to Christopher Reeve and his stunning book "Still Me" that gave me a wonderful starting point, and the cripplepunk community on tumblr who talk about their issues in an open and honest way and allow people to learn from them.

One minute Kate is running, sprinting off the roof she's been shooting from and jumping to the next building. And then her foot snags and she holds her breath as the ground rushes up to greet her.  


The next minute she is surrounded by beeping, by machines and doctors and a sharp smell that makes her vaguely ill. She tries to talk, tries to open her mouth but there's something in the way and she makes a sick, gagging noise.  


"Shh," Clint says, his hand soft on her forehead. "You're okay. You're alive."  


She feels something wet on her cheek, warm and sudden and for a second she struggles to figure out why Clint has spit on her while she's strapped to a medical bed. She even opens her mouth to say something cutting, something about how that's not her kink.  


But the tube in her throat chokes her when she tries and she feels his hand shaking, registers the sound of his ragged breath and realizes that he is crying. It feels detached, like something that's happening at a distance, but it's Clint, and he's crying.  


"You're alive, Kate," he says, his voice less cracked than shattered. "You're alive."

* * *

Alive is about all she is.  


It's almost funny, once Kate learns the extent of her injuries. How many buildings has she fallen off before? How many has Clint? And yet here she is, her spine all but broken in half and no feeling below her chest.  


There are all kinds of words that the doctors have to offer about rehab and how lucky she is to still be breathing on her own and how she'll probably be semi-autonomous but all Kate can think, when she gets to the point where she is thinking, four or five months in, is that she will spend the rest of her life pissing in a bag.

* * *

Being a superhero has perks, and one of them is the medical care you get.  


There are all kinds of experimental drugs and treatments - most of which she's had before - things that knit bone and erase bruises and can heal almost anything else that happens to you on the battlefield. And they're free, or close enough to it, so she never has to call her shithead of a father to get what she needs.  


But by the time she's stable, by the time six months have passed and she's at a rehab and finally eligible for experimental Extremis pills or diluted Super Soldier Serum or whatever they're offering, they don't help. She's not sure they ever could have. She doesn't know if they could have regrown her actual spine, pulled together the nerves that she severed.  


This is her life, now. This bed, this room, this aching emptiness and spasming legs. 

"I might have been better off if the fall had killed me," she tells Clint one night after a grueling round of physical therapy, a day designed to help her hold a pen.  


"No," Clint says, and she's just glad he isn't crying, that he's in control of himself for the moment. "Kate, the world needs you."  


"Nah," Kate shakes her head because she can, dammit. "No one needs two Hawkeyes. That's why there were two of us. You're enough."  


"Not for me," Clint whispers, and if Kate could feel her heart, it might break. "One'll never be enough for me."

* * *

Sometimes, Kate wakes up and she feels like she's still healthy, still whole. She wants to get up, to make coffee, to open the door and take Lucky for a morning walk.  


And then she tries. And when her legs don't move she wants to scream. The walls of the rehab rush in on her, the machines behind her blaring sirens as her heart starts racing.  


Usually, this summons someone to uselessly tell her to breathe, to try and calm her down with platitudes which are so fucking frustrating that all she wants is to go home.  


She just wants to go home, and she wants to be able to walk through the door on her own two legs.

* * *

It takes a whole fucking year. A year after her accident, after the fight and the fall and the fear and the failure, the physical and emotional therapists say she can go home.  


She leaves the rehab in mid-May, the air crisp and sweet and there's no better time to get to go back into the world. She would say something about springtime, about flowers and sprouts and waking up, but even if it feels right, it's too cliche to give it voice.  


She can move herself now, get herself from the bed to her chair, she can breathe on her own and speak and chew. She even has a special bracelet that lets her attach a toothbrush or a fork or a pen, so she can do the basics of caring for herself. She would be ashamed by that, by the fact that she's going to need help to pour milk or string her bow, but she's fought for every inch of what she does have, and she won't be held back anymore. She won't be pulled down by the things she can't control. Kate is ready to live on her own, to stretch her arms and wheel herself over her own threshold.  


Except she doesn't have anywhere to go, not really. It's not like anyone has been paying her rent for the last year, and it's not like she's going to crawl on her belly through the fire to ask for her dad's stupid help. Clint offers up his place, for a start. It's not ideal, but it'll do until she can get something better. Anything would do, really, that wasn't the hospital.

* * *

"Nothing has to be different, you know," Kate says, on the day she comes home from rehab.

Clint snorts. "Nothing?" he asks, giving her a very obvious once-over as if he's trying to decide if she's forgotten that she just had to be carried up the stairs, or if she's gone insane.

Kate shrugs-- and god, she loves that she can shrug. She's lost so much, but she can still move her fucking shoulders and every time she does a little chill runs through the parts of her that still feel chill.

"I'm still Hawkeye," she says.

"You're in a wheelchair, Hawkeye," Clint replies, and god he sounds tired. Like he's the one who had to relearn how to move his fingers.

Kate spins to look at him, the anger hot in her chest, which makes her know that anger isn't real and isn't hot, because no way should she be feeling that. "Yeah, and?" She snaps. "You're deaf, Daredevil is blind, and Nick fucking Fury has one eye. Never stopped any of you, and this isn't going to stop me. I can still do this."

Clint sinks onto the couch, giving off an air of resignation and defeat that just makes her angrier. "I'm sure you can," he says, softly. His lack of fight scares Kate a little. He should always be fighting her. Fighting is what they _do_.

"But?" Kate rolls closer to him, only stopping when her shins bump on the coffee table that is too close for her to get around. She realizes like a jolt that this apartment doesn't fit her anymore. It used to be perfect, the loft and the target and the kitchen that only made coffee. But it isn't going to work, not anymore. She can't stay here now that she's in the chair. She can't depend on him to carry her in and out every day, she can't make it reconfigure to suit her.

"But I can't," Clint says, his voice almost a whisper.

She stares at him for a long moment, trying to understand, trying to track where this defeat is coming from. "You can't?" she echoes, at long last. "You can't what, exactly?"

Clint shifts so he doesn't have to look at her, as if it hurts him to see her - and fuck him, to be hurt by this - before he speaks again.

"I'm not saying you're not Hawkeye," he says. "You are. I can't take that from you and I don't want to."

Kate waits, trying to tap into the patience she learned in the rehab, in the struggle of learning to straighten her index finger for weeks before she got it. If she could fight that, fight through her own nervous system, she can fight for Clint. 

"I--" he winces, and she's again full of her own bitter disappointment that he's making this hard for both of them. "I don't want you out there, not yet."

"Why?" Kate demands, her giddy feelings of freedom finally melting in the flames of her anger and fear and regret at the look on his face.

Clint stands, and Kate can't help but see him running away, moving to places she can't follow. "Because," he says. "You were just in a hospital for a fucking year. You almost died and I was the one sitting by your bedside and I can't--"

His voice cracks, his shoulders shaking as he stands with his back to her.

"Clint," she says, summoning up all the restraint it takes to not to yell at him. 

He doesn't move. 

"Clint," she says again. "Look at me."

She sees him square his shoulders, feels him swallow around his despondence and wipe his eyes as if she might not notice he was crying, but he turns to look at her.

"Come here," she says, holding out her arm to him, wishing she had the dexterity to crook a finger and bring him close. She wants to grab the back of his neck and shake him, really, but that's not on the menu.

He comes back to the sofa and sits, knee-to-knee with her, meeting her eyes. He looks a wreck, she sees it now. His eyes are red-rimmed and raw, the skin under his nose is irritated like he's had a cold. His arms look smaller than they used to, and he's skinnier than before. He's been at the rehab a lot, yeah, but she never noticed how little he was taking care of himself. How much he'd poured into her.

"Clint," she sighs. "We can talk about it. About what we're ready for, and when."

"I'm sorry," he half-whispers.

"I know," she says. He's always sorry, but she kinda wishes that just once or twice, he would think about the sorry before he does the thing.

Kate reaches out and touches his face with her fingertips. She used to love touching his face, used to wish she could spend hours tracing the contour of his jaw. But it doesn't feel the same, his stubble barely tickles and she loss aches more than she ever thought she would.

Still, he leans into the touch, closing his eyes and sighing.

"It's been a long year," he says.

"You think I don't know?" Kate asks, glancing around. "You think it's been easy for me?"

Clint smiles in a thin way that doesn't reach his eyes. "No. But you're-- you're so fucking strong, Katie-Kate. You know that?"

Kate just shakes her head. "I'm really not," she says. And she hopes that he knows what she means.

* * *

The nice thing about your kinda-boyfriend semi-partner owning the building he lives in is that when you point out that you will never, ever be able to walk up the stairs to his dumb lofted bedroom, he can move you both to a unit on the ground floor.

There isn't a loft in this one, which is nice not only because of the stairs issue, but because Kate has always been partial to doors on her bedrooms. She's a big fan of having at least some privacy

He's still moving a few things down, but Kate likes sleeping in the new unit, even without the targets and the couch just yet. They've sent Lucky to a kennel for a few days, just so he doesn't have to be underfoot while they're moving and setting up, which makes it seem less like a home. But still, the first floor is great. It helps to know that if this old rattletrap catches fire, she can get herself out without needing to be carried.

Which is how Kate finds herself waking up in their new apartment on a Wednesday morning, two weeks after she was discharged. 

Clint isn't there, his side of the bed cold and empty, but that's okay. Sometimes he doesn't come to bed, falls asleep on the couch and lets her have the space to herself. Sometimes he gets up early. He goes out, he has a life. She fully intends to have a life, too, sooner than later. She's been working on designs for a new chair, one that will let her be active as a hero. Maybe she won't be in the thick of it, shoulder-to-shoulder with The Hulk, but she figures if they can get Stark or someone to fund it, she can have her own herochair in six to ten months and get out into the fray.

But today there are still things to do; she has to get up, first of all, and today she has to get herself to the social worker they've assigned her to talk about disability checks. That should take most of her energy, so she plans to do nothing else afterwards. But step one is getting up. Kate shifts herself to the edge of the bed, where her chair is waiting for her.

She's practiced this a thousand times, the moving of her lower half into the beautiful wheelchair that gives her autonomy. She'd drilled with an occupational therapist for months. But a thousand drills doesn't mean she's an expert, apparently, because she shifts her weight and feels herself tipping forward.

"Fuck!" Kate yells, as her nose hits the floor and her teeth sink into her top lip, the warm copper taste of blood staining her tongue. "Fuck, shit, fuck!"

This is bad. This looks bad, it feels bad, it is bad. She can't get up from here, doesn't have the strength in her upper body or the nimbleness in her hands to get herself into the chair from the floor. She can prop herself up on her elbows, she can use her arms to gather momentum to roll, but she's not strong enough to get to where she needs to go.

"Fuck," she whispers again, glancing around for her phone. It's on the bed, but it's plugged into the wall, and with a certain amount of effort, she knows she can get herself close enough to grab the cord, pull it to the floor, and call for help. Kate grits her teeth and starts to crawl the infinite three feet to help.

* * *

It only takes half an hour for Clint to get home, but it's long enough that Kate is fucking pissed when he gets there and drops next to her before scooping her up into his arms and carefully sitting her in her chair.

"Are you okay?" Clint asks, running his hands over her legs and back, checking for broken bones that she can't feel.

"No," she snaps. "No, I'm not fucking okay!"

The tears aren't wanted, but they come, and Kate folds herself in half with the force of the first wracking sob. "I'm not okay," she whimpers, burying her face in her hands. "I'm not, I'm not."

Clint's hand is warm on her shoulder, gentle for all the work he's done with it. He doesn't say anything, just sits on the bed and touches her softly, waiting for Kate to cry herself out.

"I hate you," she gasps, as the headache from hysterical sobbing starts to set in, but she's not sure exactly who she's saying it to. Maybe Clint. Maybe herself. Maybe the fucking floor.

"I know," Clint breathes. "Can I hold you?"

Kate finally looks at him, sees the matching tears in his eyes. It dawns slowly, a kind of creeping comprehension, that he might need it as much as she does.

"Yeah," she breathes, and he lifts her as if she weighs nothing, setting her in his lap, his arms curled around her protectively.

His breath is warm and humid on her neck, his forehead against her temple. "I'm sorry," Clint whispers. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Kate nods. She's sorry, too. "You got here when you could," she says, her throat feeling raw and her voice gruff from the crying. "You came when I called."

"No," he breathes, lifting his head to kiss her temple like a feather. "I wasn't there. Again."

The words feel like a kick in the gut. Not that Kate can feel her gut, exactly. "What?"

"I should have been there. Today. Yesterday. Last year, on the roof. On your six."

Kate tastes bile, acid sharp, in her mouth, and the combination with the old blood taste from her fall makes her want to vomit. "Shut the fuck up," she hisses, pushing him away as best she can. 

Clint loosens his grip and looks at her eyes. "What?"

"Shut up," she says. "Shut up about you and comfort me."

He nods and strokes her hair, but the moment is broken. She can feel his guilt too acutely to relax into his touch, and her time on the floor has left her more restless than anything else.

"I want a shower," she says, when she can't stand to be still for another moment. "Can you put me down please?"

Clint shifts, moving her back into her chair. "What are you doing today?" he asks, as though they didn't talk about it last night. 

"Disability appointment," she says. "And calling my shrink to talk about my irrational anger at the floor. And then I was thinking about texting America to see if she wanted to get coffee."

The second part is a lie. She just doesn't want to encourage him to tag along. She wants to do this for herself.

"I'll be here till you leave," Clint says, standing up and touching her shoulder so lightly that she barely feels his fingertips. "Just shout if you need me."

Kate smiles thinly at him and nods. The last thing she wants right now is to need anyone.

* * *

"I'm going to kill him," Kate sighs, sipping her coffee through the straw that America put in it for her. Drinking coffee through a straw is weird, for sure, but she's gotten used to it. Mostly. She just misses the shock of heat to the mouth, the wake-you-up feeling of a long swallow.

"You've said that before," America says. They're in a Starbucks near Clint's building because, for all of her desire to not go back where Clint is, Kate doesn't have that much energy. She wants to be close to home. "But he's still around. So stop making empty promises."

Kate snorts, the laugh bubbling up unexpectedly. "How are you?" she asks, watching her friend's face. "How's the team?"

"We miss you," America says, pausing to drink, She doesn't sip, she never has. She gulps. America doesn't do anything by halves. "I might murder Loki. But that's always on the table."

"I saw you on the news," Kate offers. It's nothing new. They've all been on the news. They're fucking superheroes. "You looked like you were working well together."

America shrugs. "We won, and that's good. But something is missing."

"What?" Kate asks.

"You, Princess," America gestures at Kate with her chin. "You're important."

Kate considers for a whole second before she leans forward and grins. "I have this idea," she whispers. "A chair with repulsor tech. Autoloading bow. Eyeline aiming. I figure with the right support, I could be back in the field in under a year."

Whatever reaction Kate was expecting, it wasn't the open horror that paints America's face. 

"You what?" America asks, her voice raspy with emotion.

It feels like someone's thrown Kate into a tub of ice water. Her arms erupt into goosebumps and the room seems to lose all the air in it. "I can still contribute," she says, the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. "I'm not useless. I'm just… Seated."

"Kate, no." America breathes, reaching out to touch Kate's hand and Kate aches that she can't curl her fingers well enough to hold her best friend's hand. "I-- it's so fucking dangerous."

"Yeah," Kate nods. "Always was. Landed me in this position, didn't it?"

"Next time," America sits back, glancing up at the ceiling as if the answers will be there. "Next time you might not be so lucky."

Kate smiles sadly and shakes her head. "You don't get it. You-- this can't happen to you. You're bulletproof or whatever. And maybe you thought I was, too. But I'm not. This always could have happened to me. And I knew that. And I did what I did, knowing that."

America's face is open and sad and Kate hates that she put that look there. She feels like she's been awake for a week. Suddenly the hurt of this morning comes rushing on, the bruise on her cheekbone from her fall, the psychic damage of lying there, the ache of having to comfort Clint through her tears. It hurts, and her brain tries to tell her that the pain is in her legs because apparently she can't handle it any other way. It's a lot and it's all at once, and Kate closes her eyes and sits back.

"Can we talk about this later?" she asks, hoping that America will understand, that she won't push it.

To her great credit, she doesn't.

* * *

Things aren't easy. They were never going to be easy. But Kate takes the summer to get into the rhythm of life, to feel out the way things are going to go. 

Some things are less infuriating than others; the grocery store has better aisles for her chair than the bodega, the bus is nominally more convenient than the subway, and she has to admit that moving herself around is helping to build upper body strength. But Kate has weekly therapy to yell about how the world is unfair, she has America to talk to when she needs her best friend and there is still laughter in the apartment, still a lightness between her and Clint that makes the place feel more like home than anything else ever has.

In July, Kate and her therapist decide that the lack of archery is unacceptable. So she gets some new equipment with special bits and bobs to make it work. But even with the build-up from the chair, she still has a lot of muscle to re-form and a lot of drilling to do to relearn the movements. And she can't move as fast as she did before. It'll never be quite the same, she knows that. But it can be something.

"Looking good, Hawkeye," Clint tells her one afternoon in mid-August, when he comes back home from some Avengering and she's shooting in the living room.

"Not so bad yourself," she says, taking in the smudge of soot on his forehead, the mussed hair and the busted lip.

Clint strikes a Captain America pose, his hands on his hips. He looks like a little boy in his daddy's clothes. Kate laughs at him and for a moment, everything feels right. It feels like the old days, the days before everyone looked at her like she was a broken thing. For that moment, she can forget the regret in America's eyes, the pain in Clint's face, the worry in the back of Kate's mind. For that moment, there is just laughter and she is _happy_. And it seems, in that moment, like Clint should kiss her. Kate wants him to. She wants that adrenaline that they used to have, _before_. But instead he gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. 

"You want a pizza?" he asks, heading past her into the bedroom as he pulls his shirt over his head. "I need a shower, but I was thinking pepperoni and sausage. And bacon. Maybe ham?"

Kate doesn't say anything, just shakes her head. So much for moments.

* * *

They get along, mostly.

Mostly. 

But there are some parts of this that Kate was never prepared for. She wasn't ready for the fact that she can still feel hot but she can't sweat to stop it. She wasn't ready for the annoyance of nosy strangers, the people who think it's okay to ask her what happened, like she owes them an explanation for her existence.

And she sure as fuck wasn't prepared for the tabloids, the invasive photographers who yell things at her about if she and Clint are still fucking. Sure, a certain amount of that was to be expected with the Avenging job. And when she was still walking, it wasn't a big thing to fire a grappling arrow and jump around on rooftops when she wanted to avoid them.

But being in the chair, they make her feel even more like public property than she did before. A lot more, actually, because it's not like "Lady Hawkeye" was a hot commodity. But man, "Paralyzed Lady Hawkeye" fills column inches.

So she's already in a bad mood when she gets home on a Tuesday in early September. She had hoped to go for a spin around the neighborhood. Just get some air, see some trees, move around a little. She hadn't been expecting the damn paparazzi to be hanging out, and she really hadn't expected the greasy guy with the wet eyes to actually try and grab her chair.

And then there's the state of the goddamn apartment.

Look, Kate gets being busy. She knows Clint isn't the best at remembering to clean a toilet or fold his laundry. If left to his own devices, he'd probably be happy to sit around watching Kung Fu movies with his hands down his pants.

But in the half an hour she's been gone, he has flat-out trashed their apartment.

"Clint!" Kate barks into the empty room. She can get the door open, but there's no way she can maneuver herself around the piles and stacks of arrows and targets and clothing and he's moved the couch so she'll have to pull off a 40-point turn to even hope to get around it. "Clint!"

He appears from the bedroom, ratty and sweaty and looking downright confused. Lucky follows at his heels like the good dog he is.

"You're home fast," he says, as if that moves the fucking couch out of her way.

"I got accosted," she says, the words bitter. "And now I can't get into my fucking house. What is this?"

He looks shocked, as if he's just now figuring out that she can't catapult herself over things anymore. As if it hasn't been almost 18 months now since she stood under her own power. Lucky picks his way across the room and sits, his head on her knee. She gives him an absent pet, waiting for Clint to react.

"Accosted?" Clint says, stepping into her space so he can touch her, he can check her for injuries she doesn't have. "Are you okay? Should I call the police?"

She's exhausted. She doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to have _another_ chat with him about how he needs to be considerate. She pushes his hands off of her and rolls back a step, to give herself some personal space.

Clint takes the hint and steps back and around a pile to move the couch, pulling it out of her way so she can at least get the door closed if she decides to come inside. Lucky takes this as an invitation and jumps up onto the offending piece of furniture, curling into a ball of fur and starting to snore almost immediately.

"I'm-- forget about that. What are you doing?" she asks, trying to bite down on the rage that she's cooking slowly.

"The bathroom," he says, simply. "It doesn't work. It needs remodeling."

"The bathroom," Kate replies slowly. "You waited until I left the house for half an hour to decide to remodel the fucking bathroom?"

It doesn't even make sense. She has been talking about wanting a shower she can roll into for months, but that he would try to do it in the time it took her to take a lap of the neighborhood is just strange. It's a project of days, not hours.

Still, Clint looks at her like it's strange that she's not happy. "You need a better bathroom," he says, shrugging.

"Clint," Kate sighs. "This is not a thing you just decide to do without telling me. You have to-- is this my home or not? Do you need me to pay rent or something?"

He shakes his head. "No! I mean, of course it's your home," he says. "I-- if it wasn't I'd still be upstairs."

"If it's my home," Kate says slowly, annunciating every syllable as if he's clearly too stupid to understand them. "Then you can't just fuck it up. You have to actually think about me for once."

"I _was_ thinking about you!" Clint snaps back. "I was trying to actually do something fucking useful for you!"

Kate rubs at her eyes so hard that she sees actual sparks, her vision going white with the pressure. "Really? That's what you want to go with?"

"What does that mean?" he hisses. And here they are again, in another fucking fight. She wonders idly if he only likes her cause she can hold her own with shouting.

"It means that if you want to do something useful for me, don't do this," she gestures broadly to the mess of the living room. "Don't make a fucking minefield that you _know_ I can't navigate. For once in your life, try planning something out. Who knows, you might actually succeed at it." 

"Fuck you," he shouts, kicking at a pile. "That's a low blow, Kate, and you know it."

It is. It's a low blow, but she's wound up and she can't seem to stop herself from just unloading on him. Part of her brain is screaming that she needs to pull up out of the nose dive, but she's just so fucking tired of playing Nice Cripple for him and everyone else that she needs to fucking yell at someone, and goddamnit Clint deserves a little yelling right now.

"What do you want me to say?" she snarls, her lip curling in disdain. "You want me to tell you that it's okay that you made it impossible for me to even enter my fucking apartment cause you had some stupid idea that you didn't consult me on? It's not! It's not okay!"

Her outburst seems to slam it through his thick skull that she's not going to be the one to de-escalate this. It seems to dawn on him that she's going to keep yelling and he deflates a little, his shoulders slumping. "I just wanted to help," he says again, looking like the pathetic orphan that he was, the lost boy who managed to aw-shucks his way into the circus.

"You keep _doing_ that," she snaps. "You keep taking my moments and making them about you."

"What? I--" Clint opens his mouth and closes it again in shock, like he doesn't know what she's trying to say. But this has been building. This has been building and it hurts and it's coming one way or another.

"Shut up," Kate snaps, stabbing a finger at his chest. "Just shut up. You're not the one in the chair. You're not the one who has to check for pressure sores for the rest of your life. You don't have to worry about pains in places you can't feel, or legs that only move when you wish they wouldn't. You can sweat and jump and feel your fucking dick. So stop it." She's built up a head of steam now, and she goes in for the kill. "Stop making me comfort you about _my_ fucking injury."

Clint looks so much like a kicked dog that she wants to apologize, but fuck him. She's right. She's right and she gets to say it, and he doesn't get to make her do the work of his mourning. He has SHIELD psychiatrists for that, and he's had more than a year that he's spent not asking for their help.

The words hang between them, ugly and heavy and taking up all the air.

"Sorry," he says, simply, bending to pick up one of his piles. "I'll get this sorted out."

"Fine," she says, spinning herself so she can leave the apartment again. "I'm going back out. I'll be back in an hour, if you wouldn't mind making it so I can get through the goddamned door."

"Fine," Clint says, and she doesn't have to be facing him to know he's pouting, that he's not even looking at her. 

Kate leaves, pulling the door closed behind her. Honestly, she'll take her chances with the chair grabbing asshole over this. She exits the building, turns left, and keeps on moving.

* * *

Kate would love to pretend that she's being magnanimous by staying in the park for a good hour and a half. But the truth of the matter is that her nerves are fucking fried. She's done, and she needs the time to bring herself back to a place where she can look at Clint - or any human being, really - without wanting to smash them to pieces so they can feel as broken as she does.

She tries to focus on her breathing, on the five count of in-in-in-in-in, out-out-out-out-out that her current therapist, Andrea, has been working on with her. Andrea is great-- a woman of infinite patience and kindness who takes absolutely none of her shit. Kate misses her in the moment, misses the way she listens intently while Kate bitches about her new lot in life.

Kate supposes she could call her, or text, but the idea of talking to another person just feels exhausting at the moment. She'll talk about this next session. Right now, she has to breathe, to focus on the in and out as it comes and goes.

And she knows what Andrea would say, anyway. She would listen for as long as Kate wanted to talk and then she'd say, in her sweet Texas drawl, "Yup. You got it pretty bad, Kate. So, what are you gonna do about it?"

It's a fair question. It always is. Because the injury might stop her from walking and holding a knife and wiggling her toes, but nothing on this or any other planet is ever going to stop her from doing _something_.

* * *

When she gets home, Clint is perched on the couch, which is back where it belongs in their now-restored apartment. Lucky is still asleep, but he's now on the floor like a puddle of dog, his nose tucked next to Clint's foot in case someone drops some food.

Clint stands quickly when she opens the door, and then sits back down and stands again like he's wandered into a Sunday mass and is trying to get the choreography right.

It's pathetic and it's sweet. And it's _Clint_.

Lucky is less amused by the sudden burst of movement and gets up as if it's the worst imposition any dog has ever faced before making his slow way into the bedroom to continue his nap.

"Hi," Kate says, rolling her way in and closing the door. "You okay?"

Clint nods and then, as if his knees are officially done with his shit, he sits. "Hi," he replies.

"Have you eaten?" Kate asks, watching him fidget with the hem of his shirt. He's nervous. He's anxious. And it's her fault. Well, no. It's both of their faults. But she has the power to make it better.

His head shake is solemn. "No," he answers. "Are you going to-- are we done?"

Laughing would be cruel, and Kate has had enough of being cruel for a while yet, so instead she maneuvers herself so she can see his face, so they're knee-to-knee. "No," she says, reaching out to lay her hand over his. "Well, I'm not. Are you?"

The relief in his eyes is like a flood, and she suddenly sees the last hour and a half through his eyes-- her yelling, turning her back on him and leaving, and staying away longer than she said. He must be having flashbacks to Bobbi. Or to her California sojourn. That's the anxiety. The waiting to be cut loose.

"I'm not done," he says. "But I'm sorry I fucked up."

Kate nods. "I'm sorry, too."

Clint furrows his brow at her. "Are you sorry I fucked up? Or something else?"

This time she does laugh, but it's not cruel. She laughs because only Clint Barton would ever have to ask that, and the feelings in her chest are overwhelming and just too big to keep them inside, so they come out as a laugh.

"Something else," she says, trying to keep her voice soft and even so he knows she's not mad at him. Like she's talking to a stray dog. "I shouldn't-- Look, it's not an excuse to yell at you, but I got ambushed by some paps, and I was already frayed when I got home. I was in a bad place. You didn't deserve that. You especially didn't deserve to be called a failure, cause that wasn't just a low blow, it was a lie."

He smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, and gives her hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry I made it an obstacle course in here," he says. "I should have talked to you about the reno before, you know, starting it."

Kate smiles at him. "Thank you for the thought," she says. "But I do want a say in how it looks, you know. Help you pick out a sink or whatever."

"Are you besmirching my tile picking prowess?" he asks, a smile playing along his lips for the first time since she got home.

Kate wants to play, she wants to tease him and fall back into their easy banter. But she can't, not quite yet. She has to say one more thing before she can let go, before she can relax into their comfortable rhythm.

"I also," she swallows. This part is hard. Harder than it has any right to be. "I need you to get a therapist."

An emotion sweeps across his face, and Kate's stomach feels bottomless. She was afraid of this, that he would be angry at her for suggesting it.

"What?" he asks. "Why?"

Kate finally takes her hand off of his, using it to rub at the bridge of her nose. "What I said," she sighs. "About me comforting you? You have-- look, what happened to me affects you. Just like when you got hurt, it affected me, right?"

He nods. They'd had some trouble after he was deafened, it took some time for Kate to come to grips with the idea that he wasn't going to get better. It had hurt them both, but they had gotten through it and they had figured it out together.

"Okay," she says. "So, I'm dealing with a lot here. Like you were then. A lot of grief. That's what Andrea says. That I have to grieve. And you are too, cause this happened to someone you -- to me. But I need--"

Kate bites her lip, trying to find a way to say this that actually encompasses what she needs, trying to make the words turn around to fit the holes they have to plug.

"I need you to have someone to talk to," she says, finally. "Who can help you work it out. Cause I can't be that person for you, not while I'm going through it. And I'm scared that if you don't have someone, you'll hold your feelings under water until they drown, and you'll just be full of dead feelings and it'll kill us."

Clint blinks at her, as though he doesn't understand. And for a moment, a long moment, Kate is scared that he doesn't. That he's going to fight her on this, and they're going to have to be done because she can't do this lift alone. She needs someone who supports her, who can handle the long years of being disabled that she has in front of her. If he's not the guy for this --and she really wants him to be but if he's not-- she wants to know sooner than later. She doesn't want to waste the time she has left with someone who can't help her use it.

"Okay," Clint says, at long last. "But-- while I'm doing that, and you're seeing your shrink, can we also, I don't know, find a third person to pay one-fifty an hour for both of us?"

Well. Kate wasn't expecting _that_. 

"You want to do couples counseling?" she asks, failing to keep the incredulousness out of her voice.

Clint nods. "Yeah. Bobbi and I did it for a while, and it-- I mean, obviously it didn't work for that, but I was thinking that maybe if we get a jump on it, on figuring out how to not have fights that end up in us having to have Very Serious Living Room Talks, we'll do better in the long run."

And there's the rest of the shock. Clint, who has barely kissed her in the four months since she got out of the hospital, wants to go to couples counseling.

"What are we?" she asks, softly. Because all of a sudden, faced with the idea of being a couple and working through things as one, she is pulled up short. Apparently the lack of physicality has been weighing on her, his seeming fear of touching her has hurt more than she realized. Suddenly, she feels like, even more than her legs, she's lost Clint in all of this.

He makes a quiet noise in his throat. "Whadda ya mean?" he says, reaching back out to touch her hand.

Kate takes a deep breath. "What are we?" she asks again. "Are we still-- you know?"

The silence is long and it is heavy and she feels hot, all of a sudden. Humiliated, ashamed, mortified. Because if the question is this hard for him, then maybe she's the only one who needed it asked, and maybe she's breaking something else, taking the good thing she has here and throwing it away with both hands.

"What were we before?" he asks, when Kate has started hoping the alarm clock will go off and wake her up from this conversation.

And that's about the worst answer he could have given.

"I-- we--" she swallows around a lump in her throat that she kinda wishes would choke her. "We were fucking, I know that much."

"We were," Clint agrees, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb so sweetly and coarsely that she wants to start to cry. "But did you have-- I mean, were we---"

The tension in Kate's chest finally breaks, escaping her in another treacherous bark of laughter that threatens to tear this fragile reality apart. "I don't want anything to be different," she says, wishing she could cry about this, or something else more appropriate than all this fucking sad laughter. 

Clint sighs, his breath juddering and shaking on the way out of his mouth as though it might not hold together. "I wouldn't be sharing a bed with you if I wanted anything to change," he says, his eyes meeting hers and sending a thrill down her spine as she sees the lust in them. "But-- but I kinda need you to help me out here. To show me what works, now."

What he isn't saying is so loud that she wants to scream to drown it out. "Do you love me?" she asks, because if she doesn't ask she's pretty sure he'll never tell her.

"Kate," he says, her name like a prayer to a god neither of them believes in. It reminds her, sharply, of the memory in the hospital, of him crying over her being alive. "You had me on day one."

But that's not an answer. At least, not an answer she wants. "Do you love me?" she asks again, refusing to settle for less than she needs.

"Yes," he whispers, and this man is the most infuriating person she has ever known. "I love you, Kate Bishop," he tells her, kissing her cheek. His lips are soft on her skin, like the well-worn leather of her shooting glove. His kisses belong on her skin the same way her glove belongs on her fingers.

Kate feels giddy at the contact. She misses dancing, suddenly, and misses goofy turns around the roof with him after a job gone right, or sweet romantic sways into the bedroom, him humming some old song, half-off key and mostly wrong but they're both too into feeling each other to care. But she can't dance, not right now. Dancing is more of a production these days, so instead she leans forward and rests her forehead against his.

"About fucking time," she whispers, and he pokes her in the shoulder. 

"Hey," he says, but she can hear the playful petulance in his words. "No fair. You love me?"

Kate smiles. "Always have," she says. "Clint, I love you and I always have."

And it's true. It hasn't always been romantic, that came later. But she's always loved him, even when he was just a hero in the news. She always loved the idea of him, and when she finally got to know him, she found herself loving all of the worst parts of him despite herself. 

"Good," he whispers, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and kissing her gently. 

Kate smiles, and she kisses him back.

* * *

The sex is slow, and it's tentative and it's sweet, all of which is new between them.

Clint touches her like he's afraid she'll break if he lays a single fingertip wrong, like he’s still trying to convince himself this is real.

But he's still Clint, and she's still Kate. And they find their way together. There are false starts, and a few positions that aren't going to happen anymore, but when he looks into her eyes and sighs her name, when he rests his head in the crook of her neck and calls her _sweetheart_ , when he sets about with his fingers and his tongue and his tenacity and she finally finds her way to a release, well. It's almost, in those small, loving moments, like nothing has changed at all.

And after, when he pulls her to him, her ear on his chest over his heart so she can hear the steady thrum of his life, Kate feels herself start to splinter.

The tears feel good, this time. They feel like another release, like letting go of the things she doesn't need to carry anymore. Like maybe she can hand part of this to Clint, and he'll help her get up and over the mountain.

He strokes her hair and makes nonsensical noises of comfort as she cries.

And for once, for the first time since she got hurt, he doesn't try to fix her. He lets her hurt, and she knows that he'll be there when she's done.

* * *

"What," America says by way of greeting. "The fuck are you dressed as?"

September has faded into October and the leaves are changing outside of Kate and Clint's window.

It's amazing how normal Kate's life has become. There are nights watching TV and trips to the store for sour gummi worms at 3 am and she's even learning to cook. Well, she's learning to use the oven to make pizza be not frozen anymore, but it's a step.

And sure, she's tired. Her energy isn't what it used to be. Some days she can't be stopped; she's social and she does chores and she might as well be able to fly. Some days just taking a shower is too much, and she needs help to get out of bed. And some days she just feels like a normal person. It's a crapshoot. 

But she has Clint, and she has America and she has her own damn self. And any of those would be enough on their own. But none of them _are_ on their own.

But still, Kate misses her team, her friends. So when Clint suggested that they have a few people over for Halloween to watch scary movies, Kate jumped at the chance to invite America. It just made sense.

Which brings her back to a front door, and her best friend in a vividly green waistcoat, peering down at Kate.

"I'm Hawkeye on his skycycle," Kate says, grinning. It had taken her a few hours to construct the costume for her chair out of cardboard and poster paint, but Clint is a sap and keeps all his old costumes. So he still had the outfit he insists isn't a miniskirt in his closet, and Kate took full advantage of that fact. It makes her legs look amazing.

America raises an eyebrow. "Hawkeye is blonde," she says, but she's also grinning, and Kate moves aside to let her enter the apartment. Lucky appears immediately from wherever he was, sniffing America with great concentration to make sure she's neither a danger nor a snack.

"Lies," Kate laughs. "I've never been blonde in my life. What are you even supposed to be?"

America grins and closes the door behind herself. "I'm not throwin' away my shot," she answers, and Kate snorts hot air through her nose in surprise.

"I'm sorry, you're after _me_ about accuracy, Mr. Miranda? Wasn't Hamilton like, white as hell?"

"Please," America scoffs. "No one is white on Broadway, anymore. It's so last season."

Kate can't help but actually laugh as she rolls herself into the kitchen to get a few beers for them. "Since when have you known anything about Broadway?"

America takes her beer and tosses her head back to take a deep drink. "I know everything, duh. I've seen Cats."

"Liar!" Kate pokes her friend in the hip as they move back into the living room, where _Friday the 13th_ is playing on the TV. "You've seen a cat, maybe. You've fought someone dressed as a cat, sure. You've never seen a musical."

They're both laughing too hard to keep up the fight, which feels just about right, Kate has missed this, has missed how easy this can all be. She transfers herself to the couch as quickly as she can, and rests her head on America's shoulder. Lucky jumps up next to her and curls into her side, giving her hand a lick as she rubs his ear.

"How are you?" Kate asks, as the teenagers on the TV screen make terrible decisions.

America shrugs. "I've missed you," she says. "But things are mostly the same for me, otherwise. Work, team, you know."

"I do know," Kate says. "I missed you, too."

The silence is a little heavy, but Kate decides to sit with it, to let it wash over them because there has been way too much talking about feelings in her life as of late. She just wants to not have to discuss something for once.

"Where's the other one?" America asks finally, glancing around.

"Avenger business," Kate says, scrunching up her nose. It never used to bother her, having to cancel plans to save the world. She was okay with missing dinner reservations to fight a Doombot or a clone army or whatever. But now that she doesn't get to go along, now that he leaves and she has to sit at the window like a damsel, she's less and less okay with the amount of time it takes to be a hero.

America doesn't say anything, but Kate knows what she's thinking, can see the thoughts written across her face as clearly as if they were written on her forehead. 

"I'm still going back out there," Kate says. "I'm not done heroing."

On the TV, Kevin Bacon is murdered by someone shoving an arrow through his throat and Kate has to smile. She appreciates a killer who uses quality gear.

"Nothing I can say will stop you," America breathes. "Will it?"

Kate smiles and shakes her head. "I'm way too stupid to be talked out of this one."

"You are," America agrees. "Just— just promise me you'll do your best to not roll your dumb self off any more roofs?"

Kate can't help but laugh. "I promise," she says. "I will not fall off of anything on purpose, ever again."

America pouts, which is a weird look on her, but she settles back against the couch and takes another drink of her beer. "Okay," she says. "I can live with that."

* * *

Kate has never been a Thanksgiving person, and luckily neither has Clint. They both agree that "family" holidays are overrated, mostly because he never had a family and hers includes her father. They're better off without family. 

So they order Thai food and eat it on the couch while Lucky begs for his share of Pad See Ew. Clint turns the TV to whatever channel shows Mr. Ed and they watch, just being with each other in silence. It's comfortable, it's domestic. And it's weird.

Kate doesn't pay attention to the TV for long, she's been daydreaming recently. It's somewhat of a new hobby, like a story she tells herself to pass the time. Recently she's been reliving her accident in the most remote of ways, imagining things she could have done - jet packs and bungee cords, grappling arrows and just being better at jumping.

There are a million other ways it could have played out. A million and seven. And Kate is willing to imagine all of them, one after another.

A talking horse? Sure. That could help. She doesn't know exactly _how_ right now, but there has to be a way.

She could have ridden Mr. Ed right off the roof, jumped at the last minute using him as a leverage point to grab onto the next building. He would still fall, though. So she would have had to have equipped him with a parachute. A horse-sized parachute wouldn't be too hard to figure out—

"Hey," Clint says, touching her shoulder. "Where are you right now?"

The touch jolts her, shakes her loose from the mooring of horse trebuchets that she could have shot herself and her imaginary talking steed to safety with, and she meets his eyes and smiles. "Just thinking," she says. "I've been, well. I've been thinking recently about how I could have done things better, could have saved myself."

Clint makes a soft noise in his throat. "And what have you decided?"

Kate reaches down to rearrange her legs, moving them so she can lean into him and feel the warmth of another body while she daydreams. 

"I need some radioactive waste," she says. "I feel like maybe I could get myself some levitating powers, or maybe be able to scream in supersonic so I can fly. Or get a horse, and a parachute."

The images must catch Clint off guard, because his laugh is more like a bark than anything else. "Oh," he says. "You're not like, beating yourself up?"

"No," she says quietly, reaching up to trace one of his cheekbones. "It is what it is, I just—I can deal better when I have a little fantasy in my life."

Clint nods. "Sure," he says. "I used to do that when I was a kid. Imagine that I had convinced my mom to not get in the car, or that the cops had stopped them or that Captain America was there to pull her out. I get it."

There's something wrong with his voice, something far away and hollow, and it scares Kate a little to see him like that. The word _listless_ comes to her, and she feels a sudden sadness for him.

"You doing okay?" she asks, trying to maintain eye contact through the question, though his gaze keeps darting around the room.

Clint shrugs. "I'm feeling a little numb recently. But Dr. Mulligan says that's not abnormal."

It's not, Kate knows that. She's had her share - more than - of numb days, where getting up and facing the world just feels overwhelming.

"Most normal thing about you," she says with a smile. "Is there anything you need?"

Clint drapes his arm around her shoulder. "This is nice," he says, pulling her close. "Being with you. It's nice to know we can still have this, that you're still here."

The scent of his soap on his skin is grounding and Kate closes her eyes to breathe it in. "I'm not going anywhere," she says. "No plans to go anywhere, anyway."

He kisses her temple, and Kate can't help the shiver she gets when he touches her so gently like that.

On the TV, the end credits roll and the next show begins, an animated Samantha Stephens flying her broom around the screen to announce that it's time for Bewitched. Kate sighs. "You're a good boyfriend," she says.

"Yeah?" Clint smiles at her, an honest smile. She'd forgotten how much praise means to him, how he laps up every last word of validation anyone can lay down for him.

"Yeah," she says. "You've been working hard on it, and I see that. And I'm thankful. Cause, you know, 'tis the season and whatnot." Kate takes another deep breath, and closes her eyes against the glare of the television. "I just really miss being out there with you."

In all honesty, she hadn't planned on saying anything. Kate has no illusions about what it might look like when she does get to be a hero again - it won't be like it was before. She'll never have her agility back, she'll never be in a hand-to-hand fight that she controls. She'll never ride another Landshark.

"I miss it too," he says. "I really miss you having my six. And my seven. All my numbers."

"We can get it back," she breathes, and she means it. She honestly does.

But what she never expected, what she never thought she would hear is Clint's soft exhalation of air and a quiet, almost whispered. "I know. And we will."

* * *

The best thing about Christmas is getting to give someone the perfect present.

The second best thing is when they don't even know how perfect it is. Kate grins to herself as she pulls Clint's alleged gift - wrapped in Iron Fist paper, of course - from its hiding place under her DVD pile. He'd never touch that many Colin Firth movies just to snoop, so she knows he hasn't found it yet.

The gift, she has to admit, is going to seem strange at first. Clint won't understand until it happens - she's gotten him a spa day. A whole day of massages and facials and mani-pedis and relaxation. A day when he is not allowed to think about taking care of her.

But because she's _met_ Clint, she's also paid a little extra to the salon owners to set up some kind of mystery for Clint to solve. There will be a toxin to cure, or an illegal dog smuggling ring, or counterfeit bottled water - something that will make him feel not only relaxed, but content.

Like an escape room, with aromatherapy.

It's Christmas Eve, and Clint has ordered the pizza, they've decorated the tree, and it's time for the annual giving of gifts. 

They chipped in together to get Lucky a bath, which is the thing he needs most in the world, but she thinks he won't appreciate it nearly as much as he should.

Kate rolls herself into the living room, where Clint is standing next to a box that is almost as big as he is with the proudest look on his face that she's ever seen.

"Holy shit," Kate says, eyeing the box. "Did you finally get me the Power Wheels Barbie Pink Mustang that I always wanted?"

"Yup," Clint laughs, bending to kiss her head. "I decided what you needed was a kid's toy that would be painful and awkward to use. You're welcome!"

"What is it?" she whispers, touching the purple bow on top like it's precious.

Clint makes a face at her. "It's a present," he says. "You're supposed to open it to find out."

"Right," Kate presses the package she's got in her lap into his hands. "Here. Open this so I can open mine."

His laugh is wonderful, free and sweet and she can't stand how much she loves him in this moment. It's infuriating. How dare he.

Neither one of them is the patient type, so Clint rips the package right open and examines the tickets. 

"Oh, nice," he says. "Couples massage?"

"Nope," Kate says, edging close to her present. "Just for you. A day when you're not a caretaker. You can think about me, but only in the sexy way."

"I always think about you in the sexy way!" Clint insists, his hand over his heart as if he's been wounded. "There's no other way to think about you."

"Yeah, yeah," she makes a gesture towards the big box. "Sure. Help me open mine?"

"Thank you," he says, kissing her head and setting aside the gift. "I love it. And you."

Kate curses inwardly at her hands, wishing she had the manual dexterity to get the box open. But she doesn't have to wait long. Clint pulls a piece of the ribbon and the four sides fall, revealing her gift.

"It's a wheelchair?" Kate says, tilting her head. "But I have one of those."

Clint's grin gets wider as he reaches over and presses a button on the arm.

The new chair - which is purple and sexy and Kate likes it already - makes a whirring noise and out of seemingly nowhere, something extends. It stops in front of where her face would be, if she were sitting and a few pieces move until it's in the unmistakable shape of a crossbow.

"No," Kate breathes, moving forward to inspect it. "Clint, you didn't?"

"I did," he says, softly, watching her face. "Well, I took your drawing to Stark, and his R&D did the actual work. But it's your chair. The one you've been talking about."

"What does it do?" Kate asks, her stomach bubbling inside.

"Let's see," Clint produces a piece of paper from his pocket. "As per your specs, it has retroreflection panels for camo, repulsor tech to glide more easily and for lift. Arc reactor power, so no charging. Eyeline aiming on the bow, as well as auto-reload. Manual option," he adds, reaching out to pop the crossbow off the arm. "If you need it."

Kate can barely contain her glee, the tears springing to her eyes with the pure joy of it.

"It's beautiful," she whispers.

"Oh," Clint says, setting the crossbow back down. "It also has thermoregulators in the arm and leg rests. It has medical vital sign monitoring, in case we need it, and a homing program that will return you here if you're incapacitated. Plus!" he presses another button and a compartment pops open under the seat. "It has pockets." 

"Oh my god," Kate gasps. "Clint this is-- thank you. And it's purple!"

"Of course it's purple," Clint scoffs, reaching down to take her hand in his. "It's for fighting crime. What other color would Hawkeye's gear be?"

Kate's throat is tight, and she squeezes his hand because she's about to start crying. "I could die doing that," she says. "Fighting crime."

"Yeah," Clint meets her eyes, his face serious and serene at the same time. "Me too."

"Okay," Kate smiles and lifts his hand to her lips. "Then let's do this."


End file.
